I is ur nurse, thinkin' smart thoughts...

I started as a graduate nurse (and soon after, a bonafide RN) on the trauma stepdown unit at my hospital about 6 weeks ago. Walking on the floor as a newly licensed nurse is about as reassuring as having to skirt by a bonfire when you are doused with gasoline and having someone say, "Oh, you'll do just fiiiiinnne." Uh-huh. You realize how dependent your patients are on you to recognize when they are going downhill, how very little those physicians hang around for you, how little those brand-new residents know, how little you know. You end up asking a lot of questions that you think are totally inane and stupid of your preceptor, your coworkers, the janitor, whoever. You second- and third-guess yourself constantly. You deeply envy those nurses who, only having been a nurse a year longer than you, seem confident in what they can do. You pray a lot. A whole lot.

During the last three of those six weeks, I've been in a critical care class as part of my job - presumably to equip me with essential skills and remove some of that deer-in-headlights look I must have every minute I'm caring for a patient. In many ways, it's been like a regular class from nursing school: lectures, homework, midterms and a final, clock-watching, and the inevitable Loudmouth. There is at least one Loudmouth in every class or group learning situation. You know exactly who I mean, too: the person who decides that each lecture is, in fact, a one-on-one conversation between herself and the instructor about irrelevant details, personal anecdotes, or just general verbal crap interjections. There's one in every class. In my case, we actually have two of them, making for a white-knuckling, eye-rolling, apoplectic experience each and every class day. I feel like writing to the federal whomever and telling them to scrap waterboarding and try this technique.

Despite the Loudmouths, I do enjoy learning the useful information, presented in a what-you-need-to-know fashion, and the instructors are pretty good at what they do. So good, in fact, that I feel ever so much more confident about coming back onto my floor in a couple of weeks. That's good. I mean, I'll still ask questions of everyone, only second-guess myself all the time, and shake in my shoes when the unexpected happens. I know how to ask for help and when, at least. And one day I know I'll be a seasoned, go-to type of nurse, and I'll see new grads shaking in their own shoes and enduring their own Loudmouths and see just how far I've come.

In the meantime, I leave you, on request, with the second half of the clip of the show I miss so much:



PS - NaBloPoMo freakin' ROCKS. Fussy, if you happen to read this, you are completely awesome. To everyone else: thanks for the comments! (You guys are awesome, too.)